Audio: Jesse Jackson interviews Michael Richards

posted at 10:48 pm on November 26, 2006 by Allahpundit

Here’s a cultural moment to hang above America’s fireplace: a vicious racist mumbling New Age psychobabble at the feet of a man who made the word “hymie” famous and whose latest crusade is to criminalize offensive speech by expanding the “fighting words” exception to the First Amendment.

I do think Richards helped himself here but not in the way he intended. He’s so high-strung and kooky — witness the bizarre “the words the words the words” and “the names the names the names” business at the beginning — that you’re left wondering if he’s fully in control of his faculties. He talked at one point about all the “rage” he feels, too, although I had to cut that as part of the fair-use culling.

Jackson, to his credit, did respond later on to Richards’ point about the ubiquity of the word “nigga” and said he wants to change that lest kids get the idea that it’s okay. I had to cut that too, unfortunately.

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Comments

I heard about it. I was really laughing. Is he under hypnosis?
He needs to calm down. I can really tell whether he is telling the truth. Anything Jesse Jackson. Proceed cautiously. Good interview. I love to see celebrities feeling pain. According to Dave Chappelle, this situation is called when keeping real goes bad.

Richards says that the image of lynching is not a CONTINUAL image in his mind, If something is not continual it must be “recurring” or “sporadic’, both of which are frankly troubling. A good answer would have been,” I never thought of that before that moment”.

Jackson, to his credit, did respond later on to Richards’ point about the ubiquity of the word “nigga” and said he wants to change that lest kids get the idea that it’s okay. I had to cut that too, unfortunately.

It’s very sad that at the moment Richards was blaming someone else for his behavior, you think he had a “POINT”.

But when someone calls this a racist thought you would immediately dismiss them out of hand, as “crying” racism! But it’s not, it’s your thinking that’s askew. So what if young blacks call themselves “Nigga”? While I submit it’s not the best they could do and I’m chagrined whenever I hear it, so what? See, it’s racist, to forget that EVERY ETHNIC GROUP THAT HAS FACED OPPRESSION, calls the members of that group by the names THEIR OPPRESSORS USED to dehumanize them. WITHOUT EXCEPTION! Poor WHITES call each other WHITE TRASH, is that the same as a black person calling them WHITE TRASH? I think not. ITALIANS call each other GUINEA and WOP all the time. Homos call each other FAGGOT and QUEER every day. Jews call each other Hebes and the IRISH are fond of calling each other MICKS, but somehow you forget all that when the color is BLACK. One can only ask, Why? This is even distorting your perceptions of the damned interview you were listening to, when you hear someone shifting blame and you think they have a “point”. If Jackson had a brain the size of a flea he would have said, “Yes Michael every group does that but somehow people from the other groups don’t feel free to join in, why did you?” Not a point at all, quite the opposite.

Richards had a meltdown in which he used a racial term to verbally attack somebody. Is that the new definition of “racism?” Let me know. I thought “racism” involved prejudice, discrimination, and a belief that one race is superior over another. I didn’t realize that now any flippant dropping of the n-bomb, or any other racial slur–no matter how ill-advised, insensitive, or rude–is now “racist.”

Oh wait, yes i did, everybody has lost their freaking minds over this issue.

What’s most disturbing to me about this whole episode is that Richards has had to go through this ridiculous show to appease all of the parasites like Jackson. Of course what he said was wrong, but c’mon… when people get mad they sometimes say the meanest most hurtful things they can say. That doesn’t make him a racist.

He should have just come out at the beginning and said:

No I’m not a racist. I let some members of the audience get under my skin and I lost control of myself, lashed out, and tried to say to them the most hurtful things that I could think of. Unfortunately, I said some things that are hurtful to a lot of people and which are very divisive, and for that I am deeply sorry.

I’ve NEVER heard a Jew call another Jew a Hebe or any other derogatory term, NEVER.

I’m Puerto Rican and German (by ancestry) and I have never heard anyone on either side of my family call each other a spic or a kraut. I think it’s strange and unhelpful but blacks in America have many other issues to deal with. Their families largely consist of “baby mamas” and “baby daddies”, most blacks that I know are racists and most of them feel have very little personal responsibility and consider themselves victims. (Sorry but I failed political correctness)

Soothsayer.
I’ve NEVER heard a Jew call another Jew a Hebe or any other derogatory term, NEVER.

CanaryinaCoalMine on November 27, 2006 at 12:19 AM

Whadddya think, Jews are special? You think you know every Jew? Listen I know some Jews in the Bedford Stuyvesent area of Brooklyn that are so tough you couldn’t tell them apart from the friggin’ Sopranos! This is where the top Jewish mobsters came from, not some namby pamby agents or accountants in Fresno!

Soooo if you never heard of Jews doing this, doesn’t the point still stand about every OTHER ethnic or oppressed group I named? Haven’t you ever called your brother an A-HOLE? Wouldn’t you fight for him if the neighbor called him that, though? This was the point which you missed by making it all about you and your understanding of Jews.

Soothsayer.
I’ve NEVER heard a Jew call another Jew a Hebe or any other derogatory term, NEVER.

CanaryinaCoalMine on November 27, 2006 at 12:19 AM

DIDN’T I JUST ADDRESS STUPIDITY LIKE YOURS IN MY FIRST POST IN THIS THREAD? MORON.

How is it different? First of all they would tell you that they are using a DERIVATIVE of the word NIGG-ER, which is pronounced NIGG-A, so there is a difference.Secondly, are they mad at each other when they’re making a record together, numbnuts? You can’t see the difference between me calling a friend an SOB in JEST and me starting a FIGHT by calling a stranger an SOB in ANGER? But in your stupid desire to give a racist an excuse for his behavior and probably YOURS, you have of course, completely overlooked the obvious. I will reprint the TRUTH since you must be too tired from being stupid to look UP. By the by, you know all of the shit that’s coming below, you’re just too much of a racist to give a black person the same leeway you would every goddamned other group.

See, it’s racist, to forget that EVERY ETHNIC GROUP THAT HAS FACED OPPRESSION, calls the members of that group by the names THEIR OPPRESSORS USED to dehumanize them. WITHOUT EXCEPTION! Poor WHITES call each other WHITE TRASH, is that the same as a black person calling them WHITE TRASH, dumb ass? I think not. ITALIANS call each other GUINEA and WOP all the time as a term of endearment, but if an Irish guy said it there’d be a war six neighborhoods large!HOMOS call each other FAGGOT and QUEER every day. Jews call each other Hebes AND Hymies and the IRISH are fond of calling each other MICKS and POTATO EATERS, but somehow you forget all that when the color is BLACK. One can only ask, Why? This is even distorting your perceptions of the damned interview you were listening to, when you hear someone shifting blame and you think they have a “point”. If Jackson had a brain the size of a flea he would have said, “Yes Michael every group does that but somehow people from the other groups don’t feel free to join in, why did you?” Not a point at all, quite the opposite.

I didn’t realize that now any flippant dropping of the n-bomb, or any other racial slur–no matter how ill-advised, insensitive, or rude–is now “racist.”

It wasn’t FLIPPANT it was HATEFUL, what the hell is wrong with you? YOU DON’T KNOW THAT CALLING PEOPLE RACIST NAMES IS RACIST? Granted it’s not the same as denying someone employment but since the word NIGGER being SCREAMED BY A WHITE GUY has usually preceeded a LYNCHING, which Richards was also RECALLING FONDLY, I think it qualifies! Are you a retard? How would a bunch of blacks calling your ass “cracker” or “little dick” feel? Although the second one isn’t necessarily “racist” I bet it’d still piss you off right, pissant?

Soothsayer.
I’ve NEVER heard a Jew call another Jew a Hebe or any other derogatory term, NEVER.

CanaryinaCoalMine on November 27, 2006 at 12:19 AM

DIDN’T I JUST ADDRESS STUPIDITY LIKE YOURS IN MY FIRST POST IN THIS THREAD? MORON.

ACTUALLY THIS ENTIRE RANT WAS TO ANDY THE DUMMY FROM AGORA HILLS who was equating Richards and RAP MUSICIANS. sry Canary I just messed up the quote. I answered you in the post which begins, Do you know evey Jew? my bad.

I’m just sick and tired of the racist apologists trying to give Richards more excuses than he’s GIVING HIMSELF. From “HE DIDN’T MEAN IT”, to “IT WASN’T RACIST”, to ” BLACKS DO IT TOO!”, posts, I’ve just about had it. If you want to know why the conservative movement and Republican party by extension, is bereft of Blacks, just read these posts and it’s all clear! Because a lot of what they say about Republicans and conservatives seems to be TRUE! There were even people on this site, DEFENDING MARK FURHMAN, a cop who said he “WANTED TO PUT ALL BLACK PEOPLE IN A PILE AND BURN THEM!” All of a sudden he’s Robert DeNiro!

Some of these people lose all human understanding of things they take for granted, like ethnic groups calling each other slurs, when the subject is Black. And since I don’t really believe that they are ALL stupid, what can there be but the basest of motives behind it?

Please pull my lengthy post out of the spam filters. I spent a little time making SoothSayer look like an ass again, and my comment didn’t show up. SoothSayer, because I’m too lazy to retype the entire thing, all I’ll say is get help. You clearly have more than a few screws loose. I don’t think there is anyone one this site who would disagree. By the way Soothsayer, who condemns everyone else on this site to hell all the time… I suppose Jesus told you to call everyone morons in that last post?

What’s with all the minimizing of the BS that’s going on in Iraq? What, is it like we don’t want it to become unpopular? TOO LATE. Geee I hate being lied to, deceived and patronized. Argue about semantics’s while there are 2882 dead US soldiers, 6 in the last few days, over 21,000 serious wounded, and mass civil casualties (40 bodies recovered yesterday) is a waste of time. If its not a civil war its about as close as it comes with out the “factions” actually saying it themselves. It’s not scare tatics its reality. Geeeeeeeeeeee.

Call it a civil war or not, fine, it’s bad! What are we going to do about it? OK its not a civil war, it’s infighting between factions. Great and we are not going to leave, but make a “strategic redeployment”. If there’s any hope this mess, which falls on Bush’s shoulders, will go down in history in a positive light, that boat has sailed.

RightWinged: “Please pull my lengthy post out of the spam filters. I spent a little time making SoothSayer look like an ass again.”

gmcfaggot, what the hell does your comment have to do with this post? I didn’t realize Jesse Jackson and Michael Richards were involved in a civil war? If you can’t stand the subject matter, I suggest starting your own blog. Or maybe just ranting with your pals at Kos.